Too busy to slow down

Spend even a few minutes with Joy Neas and you start to wonder, "When does this woman sleep?"

Lori Gilbert

Spend even a few minutes with Joy Neas and you start to wonder, "When does this woman sleep?"

There are so many hopes and dreams and plans percolating that you almost feel the dizzying, whirring mind that simply doesn't rest.

As she sat in the Mexican Heritage Center on Thursday - volunteering the first and third Thursday of each month - Neas was anticipating Saturday's Art Flash Mob that she'd scheduled on the Miracle Mile.

It was her second planned flash mob and she dreams of monthly events in locations all around town.

She also was discussing the upcoming Summer ArtSplash, the monthly downtown art shows that she began coordinating last year when the Downtown Stockton Alliance abandoned the art walk.

In the fall she's hoping to hold Art Break Day, similar to the flash mob that was started in one city and has spread to 13. Funds are made available for art supplies, but Neas said she applied too late to receive the $500.

"They said they love what I'm doing, and if they have any money left, they'll let me do it. Or, maybe I can raise some money," Neas said.

Well, sure, she could go out and raise some money in her spare time, relying on the salesmanship that made her the top candy seller when she was a Camp Fire Girl growing up in Richmond.

Selling stuff and raising money isn't what Neas is all about, though.

She's about art and vision and community and working together to make places more beautiful and harmonious.

The blond-haired, blue-eyed 50-year-old artist's first love is photography but she also crochets, dabbles in paint, draws with chalk, writes poetry and creates collages. She has been devoted to the Mexican Heritage Center since it started in 1997, but is just as committed to Little Manila and the efforts of the Filipino Community.

"There was a picture in the paper of (Stockton native) Dawn Mabalon when they knocked down the gateway block, and the building where her grandfather's lunch counter was," Neas said. "Her head was down and she was devastated. Nobody should have to feel like that."

Neas' affinity for old buildings took form when she was introduced to urban planning when she returned to San Francisco State from 1998-2000 to complete her bachelor's degree in humanities.

So inspired was the notion of developing communities with a nod to art and history, Neas went to San Jose State from 2001-04 to earn a master's degree in urban planning.

She's been civically engaged since then, from serving as chair of the University Neighborhood Renaissance Committee to founding Save Old Stockton, which spared five of eight historic downtown hotels slated for the wrecking ball to make room for parking spaces.

Neas' devotion to the place she calls home began when she and her husband of 31 years, Frank, bought their first home here in 1993. They'd moved from place to place during their marriage, but when they purchased a home, Neas was determined to embrace the community.

A woman who doesn't drive, Neas instead would walk around the city, and she was dazzled by the architecture of downtown and the splendor of the rivers and trees and natural habitats of the region.

When she looks at the Calaveras, she doesn't just see a need to clean up the riverbank, which she's done, but the need to capture it in some art form. She's coordinated art shows for different river-themed events and not only had a display of her photographs at the Earth Day celebration, but also took some 200 photos for organizers to use in promoting future events.

Neas wanted to create an art show for this year's Waldo Music Festival, an outdoor celebration on the banks of the Calaveras River that raises money for wilderness areas in San Joaquin County.

"I went several years ago and they had an art display," Neas said. "I called them and wanted to do one this year, and they said, 'We've never had an art display, we're not going to have an art display, we can't have an art display. It's only music.'

"They had an art display at one time, but they only want to do music now."

Frustrated but not deterred, Neas is taking her plans for an art show to Whirlow's, which is holding a Health and Body Festival the same day, June 8.

Neas simply refuses to give up on a desire to make her world better through the arts. She's not na´ve about the crime in her beloved city. Her father-in-law was a victim of it, run down and killed in a cross walk on California Street in 2003. Neas just believes there's a better solution than another crime summit.

"Crime talk, crime summits?" Neas said. "If you provide people with art experiences, with activities to involve themselves, they don't have the desire to commit crime or the time to commit crime.

"We need to learn about each other. We're not miserable (as Forbes Magazine says every year). A lot of people have risen up and said, 'We can be better.' A lot of positive has come out of that."

Neas' own reaction to Stockton being branded a miserable city was to win a mini grant from the Stockton Arts Commission to create a movie about the good in Stockton. It's not yet finished, and she's hoping for a grant to pay for its screening in a theater, but she attended countless events and produced hours of footage.

"When people say there's nothing to do in Stockton I feel like punching them in the nose," Neas said. "There's so much to do in Stockton. When I first started this, I would look on the visitstockton.org website and there'd be five or six things going on a day and we'd be running from one to another."

The two discovered there's more to Stockton than asparagus. There's a rich, diverse culture with plenty to offer.

And, if it isn't offered, chances are good Neas will think of a way to offer it.

She has hopes for a show at the Horton Gallery on Delta College's campus, maybe next summer. It would include a blank space, called a world without art, and another, a world with art, featuring art forms of all varieties, asking the viewer the question "Which world would you choose?"

That's down the road. For now, there's the ArtSplash to coordinate and a May 30 fundraising event, from 5 to 9 p.m. with an art exhibit and live music, to keep the Plea for Peace Center open.

If the musical shows at that venue aren't necessarily to her taste, Neas nonetheless stepped in to help with the fundraising cause.

"Artists need to support each other," Neas said.

As much as Neas enjoys creating, whether photographing and drawing or crocheting, what gets her out of bed in the morning in the face of discouragement, is the opportunity to help others share their art, and the possibility that others will find the joy in it that drives her on a daily basis.